Sept. 12, 2021, 1:02 p.m. ET

Daily Political Briefing

Evacuations for Afghans Who Helped U.S. Troops Will Begin This Month

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Former Afghan interpreters, who worked with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, demonstrated in Kabul last month.Credit...Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said on Wednesday that it would begin evacuating Afghans this month who helped the United States during the 20-year war and who could face revenge attacks by the Taliban.

The evacuation, called “Operation Allies Refuge,” will start the last week in July, officials said.

“The reason that we are taking these steps is because these are courageous individuals,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “We want to make sure we recognize and value the role they’ve played over the last several years.”

But the White House kept crucial details under wraps, including who would ultimately be eligible for evacuation, what role the U.S. military would play and where evacuees could safely be sent while their visa applications were reviewed. Those details are most likely not going to be made public until the Afghans’ safety can be assured, Ms. Psaki said.

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U.S. Will Begin Evacuating Afghans, Pentagon Says

John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Wednesday that the United States was prepared to begin evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters and translators who helped the U.S. military effort in the nearly 20-year war.

This afternoon at President Biden’s direction, the United States will begin relocation flights for the first group of eligible and interested Afghan nationals and their families who have supported the United States and our partners and who are in the special immigrant visa pipeline and we’ll begin those relocation flights by the end of this month. The department’s role in Operation Allies Refuge will continue to be one of providing options and support to the interagency effort that’s being led by the State Department. To date, we have identified overseas locations and we’re still examining possibilities for overseas locations to include some departmental installations that would be capable of supporting planned relocation efforts with appropriate temporary residences and associated support infrastructure. The department remains eager and committed to doing all that we can to support collective government efforts, U.S. government efforts, to help those who have helped us for so long.

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John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Wednesday that the United States was prepared to begin evacuation flights for Afghan interpreters and translators who helped the U.S. military effort in the nearly 20-year war.CreditCredit...Reuters

With the American military in the final phases of withdrawing from Afghanistan, the White House has come under heavy pressure to protect Afghan allies who helped the United States and speed up the process of providing them with special immigrant visas.

President Biden has vigorously defended his administration’s decision to end the war and has maintained that the United States will formally complete its military mission at the end of August.

He has faced criticism for the decision, notably from former President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mr. Bush has argued that the pullout will lead to a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis.

“I am afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm,” the former president said in an interview on Wednesday. “They are scared.”

Afghans who want to participate needed to already be in the “pipeline” of the State Department’s special immigrant visa program, said the administration official who announced the mission, adding that it would be limited to those who “supported the United States and our partners in Afghanistan.”

More than 18,000 Afghans who have worked as interpreters, drivers, engineers, security guards, fixers and embassy clerks for the United States during the war have been trapped in bureaucratic limbo after applying for special immigrant visas, available to people who face threats because of work for the U.S. government. The applicants have 53,000 family members, U.S. officials have said.

Last month, when he announced his plan to assist the Afghans who had aided American forces, Mr. Biden insisted that his administration would not be leaving them to fend for themselves.

“Those who helped us are not going to be left behind,” he said at the time.

The question now is where they will go once they are evacuated. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that officials may potentially house some of the Afghan visa applicants at bases inside the United States on a “short-term” basis while their applications are processed. This would most likely be through humanitarian parole, a government program that allows people to apply to enter the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons.

“I would say that the reason why we’re being careful about the information we’re putting out is because just like we’ve been careful about the information regarding the U.S. drawdown,” Mr. Kirby said, “we don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

The vast majority of applicants and their families would go through the relocation process and be moved to an American base in another country. The options include Qatar, Kuwait and bases throughout Europe, as well as U.S. territories, including Guam.

The mission fulfills a pledge by Mr. Biden to not repeat the abandonment of U.S. allies during the withdrawal from Vietnam, and comes as the Taliban gain more ground throughout Afghanistan, seizing swaths of territory, displacing tens of thousands, and wounding or killing hundreds of civilians.

But among former Afghan interpreters, the news was greeted with skepticism.

“They’ve promised a lot, and so far they’ve given nothing,” said Omid Mahmoodi, a former interpreter. “I’m still not believing it. There are thousands who will be left behind.”

Some interpreters have minor blemishes on their service records that have hurt, or even destroyed, their chances at securing a visa thus far. Others criticized plans to send former interpreters to countries other than the United States while their applications are processed.

Sherin Agha Jafari, another interpreter, said there were dozens like him who were considered ineligible for “very small reasons,” even though they were greatly at risk in the event of a Taliban takeover.

“I feel we will not be getting a visa,” he said. “The problem is that nobody is talking about the terminated combat interpreters. Their service is called ‘unfaithful’ so they will not be given visas. There are a lot like this.”

Others who worked with American forces were relieved, but anxious about where they might fall on the priority list.

“Very glad to hear the news,” said Wahidullah Rahmani. “I think I’m on the list. But it’s going to take a little bit of time for them to process me.”

In December, Congress added an additional 4,000 slots to the special visa program in preparation for a pullout that was supported by both Mr. Biden and his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump. Since 2014, the program has issued about 26,500 visas to foreign nationals deemed at risk because of their cooperation with U.S. forces.

The evacuations will be directed by Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, a three-time chief of mission in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kosovo, and will include representatives from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the official added.

The announcement was part of the complex, double-time choreography of moves required to quickly end a deployment two decades in the making.

Gen. Austin S. Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan for nearly the past three years, arrived in Washington on Wednesday, Pentagon officials said. Ms. Psaki said Mr. Biden would be meeting with General Miller personally that evening.

“General Miller oversaw the vast majority of our drawdown from Afghanistan, which is a particularly vulnerable period for our troops,” Ms. Psaki said. “That this drawdown has been conducted in such an orderly and safe way is a testament to General Miller’s leadership.”

General Miller, who gave up his command at a muted ceremony in Kabul on Monday, was greeted at Joint Base Andrews by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While in Washington, General Miller is expected to brief Mr. Biden and other senior administration officials. He is expected to retire later this year.

Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely, a former member of the Navy SEALs, will take charge of the security mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Admiral Vasely reports to Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a four-star Marine officer who heads the military’s Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

Schumer proposes ambitious federal marijuana legalization. It faces an uphill battle in the Senate.

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Schumer to Propose Legislation to Decriminalize Marijuana

Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said the proposed bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and call for the immediate expunging of criminal records related to nonviolent marijuana arrests.

The war on drugs has really been a war on people, particularly people of color. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would help put an end to the unfair targeting and treatment of communities of color by removing cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances. This is an idea, not only, it’s not just an idea whose time has come — it’s long overdue. We have all seen the agony of a young person arrested with a small amount of marijuana in his or her pocket. And as more and more states legalize marijuana, it’s time for our federal cannabis law to catch up. We also very much believe in the expungement of records because of the historical overcriminalization. People shouldn’t have to live. They had a small amount of marijuana in their possession. People shouldn’t have to live with a criminal record the rest of their lives — expunge those records. This is a grievous reality. Lives are being destroyed every single day. And the hypocrisy of this is that right here in the Capitol now, people running for congress, people running for Senate, people running for president of the United States readily admit that they’ve used marijuana. But we have children in this country, people all over this nation are veterans, Black and brown people, low-income people now bearing the stain of having a criminal conviction for doing things that half of the last four presidents admitted to doing. We are in the midst of a grievous moment of injustice, and it is deep at the core of who we say we are: equal justice under law.

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Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said the proposed bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and call for the immediate expunging of criminal records related to nonviolent marijuana arrests.CreditCredit...Alex Wong/Getty Images

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York proposed ambitious legislation on Wednesday to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, putting his weight as majority leader behind a growing movement to unwind the decades-old war on drugs.

The draft bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and begin regulating and taxing it, placing new federal rules on a burgeoning industry that has faced years of uncertainty. Though states would still be allowed to set their own marijuana laws, businesses and individuals in states that have made its use legal would be free for the first time to sell and consume it without the risk of federal punishment.

The proposal would also try to make recompense to communities of color and the poor for the damage inflicted by years of restrictive federal drug policy. It calls for immediately expunging nonviolent marijuana-related arrests and convictions from federal records and would earmark new tax revenue for restorative justice programs designed to lift up communities marked by “the failed federal prohibition of cannabis.”

“It’s not just an idea whose time has come, it’s long overdue,” Mr. Schumer said at a news conference in the Capitol. “We have all seen the agony of a young person arrested with a small amount of marijuana in his or her pocket. And because of the historical over-criminalization of marijuana, they have a very severe criminal record they have to live with their whole lives.”

He vowed to “use my clout as majority leader to make this a priority in the Senate.”

The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans are opposed, and is unlikely to become law in the near future. President Biden has not endorsed it, and some moderate Democrats are likely to balk at the implications of decriminalizing a drug that has been policed and stigmatized for so long.

But in the arc of the public’s rapid reconsideration of marijuana laws, Wednesday’s presentation was a remarkable milestone for legalization proponents. The suggestion that the Senate’s top leader and the chairman of the powerful Finance Committee would sponsor major decriminalization legislation would have been fantastical in the not-too-distant past.

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Treatment for gun injuries costs more than $1 billion a year, federal watchdog says.

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Investigators at the East Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago, where five people were shot in June.Credit...Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune, via Associated Press

In a groundbreaking report released on Wednesday, a federal watchdog estimated that the cost of medical treatment for survivors of gun injuries in the United States amounts to at least $1 billion each year, but is likely much higher.

The new assessment from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan investigative arm, used recent hospital data to determine that injuries sustained from firearms led to about 50,000 emergency department visits and 30,000 instances of inpatient treatment annually.

Public coverage programs like Medicaid accounted for more than 60 percent of the costs of care. While the report did not break down all patient data by race and ethnicity, it found that Black patients accounted for more than half of all inpatient stays and costs.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, the head of the House Oversight Committee, and Senator Elizabeth Warren last year requested that the G.A.O. compile research on both the immediate and long-term costs of gun injuries. The incidents covered by the report vary widely, from injuries that occurred while cleaning a weapon to instances of self-harm and suicide or interpersonal gun violence, including injuries inflicted by law enforcement.

“Today’s report provides shocking new evidence of how gun violence strains our health care system and disproportionately harms historically marginalized communities in the United States,” Ms. Maloney said in a statement. “Congress must do whatever it takes — including abolishing the filibuster if necessary — to address this public health crisis and keep our constituents safe from gun violence.”

The G.A.O. failed to find reliable data that would shed light on the long-term costs of gun injuries — the only available data on the cost of long-term physical and mental health care was decades old.

“There is no complete information on the health care costs of firearm injuries,” the 53-page report reads. “National data allow for estimates of the costs of initial hospital treatment and some first-year costs, but less is known about costs the more time passes from the injury.”

The report is unique as it is one of the first federal reports on gun violence since 1996, when the so-called Dickey Amendment effectively shuttered all federal attempts to fund or conduct research on guns and gun violence.

It was only in 2019, after a nearly 25-year hiatus, that Congress began to fund federal health agencies to conduct research on firearm injury prevention. The push was led by Democrats, while Republicans in Congress have largely pushed back against such funding.

The G.A.O. report comes ahead of a vote expected in the House Appropriations Committee on a bill that proposes a $12.5 million increase in funding toward research to help prevent gun injuries and death.

Biden visits Capitol Hill and Democrats roll out $3.5 trillion budget.

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President Biden, right, and Senator Chuck Schumer arrived at the Capitol to attend a lunch with the Senate Democratic Caucus in Washington on Wednesday.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

President Biden and congressional Democrats vowed on Wednesday to push through a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that would shepherd a transformative expansion of social and environmental programs into law, beginning an arduous drive to enact their vision for extending the reach of public education and health care, taxing the rich and trying to stem the warming of the planet.

The legislation is far from reality yet, but the details top Democrats have coalesced around are far-reaching. Prekindergarten would be universal for all 3- and 4-year-olds, two years of community college would be free, utilities would be required to produce a set amount of clean energy and prescription drug prices would be lowered. Medicare benefits would be expanded, and green cards would be extended to more undocumented immigrants.

At a closed-door luncheon in the Capitol, Mr. Biden rallied Democrats and the independents aligned with them to embrace the plan, which would require each of their votes to move forward over united Republican opposition. Yet crucial moderates had yet to tip their hands about whether they would welcome such an expansive proposal.

Mr. Biden’s message to senators, said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, was that Democrats “need to be unified, strong, big and courageous.”

“We’re going to get this done,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the Capitol.

The Senate could begin advancing the plan in weeks, though a final vote could be months away and will face multiple hurdles. For now, Democrats and their independent allies insist they are together, even as moderates declined to commit to the package without further details.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who must ultimately get the package through a narrowly divided House, told Democrats in a letter on Wednesday: “This budget agreement is a victory for the American people, making historic, once-in-a-generation progress for families across the nation.”

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Taxing imports from polluting countries is part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget.

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Sheet aluminum at a factory in Nanning, China. The European Union outlined its own proposal for a similar carbon border tax, also on Wednesday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Democrats have agreed to include a tax on imports from nations that lack aggressive climate change policies as part of a sweeping $3.5 trillion budget plan stocked with other provisions aimed at ratcheting down fossil fuel pollution in the United States.

The move to tax imports was made public Wednesday, the same day that the European Union outlined its own proposal for a similar carbon border tax, a novel tool that is designed to protect domestic manufacturing while simultaneously pressuring other countries to reduce the emissions that are warming the planet.

The two actions in concert suggest that government leaders are turning toward trade policy as a way to attack climate change.

Top Democrats called the timing coincidental but said both the United States and Europe must work together to put pressure on China and other heavy polluting countries to reduce emissions.

There are also new tax breaks for wind, solar and other renewable energy, as well as electric vehicles, a “methane reduction fee” and funding for a civilian climate corps, modeled after New Deal-era programs, to create jobs in addressing climate change and conservation, according to lawmakers.

The budget blueprint must surmount multiple political and procedural obstacles before it becomes a reality.

And skeptics caution that a carbon border tax, which has yet to be implemented by any country, would be difficult to carry out, and could anger trading partners and face a challenge at the World Trade Organization.

Unlike the Europeans, who outlined their plan in a 291-page document, Democrats released no details about their tax proposal on Wednesday. Calling it simply a “polluter import fee,” the framework does not explain what would be taxed, at what rate or how much revenue it would expect to generate.

Texas Democrats meet with supportive senators on voting rights, seeking to sustain momentum.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren addressed Democratic lawmakers from Texas on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.Credit...Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Day 2 of the Texas Democrats’ campaign in Washington to pressure Congress to enact federal voting rights protections was much like the first: packed with meetings with supportive senators, cable television appearances and a news conference.

This time, it was Democratic state senators who stood before cameras on Wednesday inside a conference room at a Washington hotel — the event was moved indoors from outside the Capitol to avoid the midday heat — to reiterate their pledge to remain outside Texas until the state’s special legislative session expires next month.

The contingent of reporters who gathered for the event was far smaller than the press corps that congregated outside the Capitol a day earlier to see Texas state representatives at their first appearance in Washington.

The Democratic state senators echoed their State House colleagues, who have blocked Republicans from doing business by denying a quorum to operate, in arguing that they were in Washington on a working trip, not a vacation, as Republicans have portrayed the trip. The State House Democrats came to Washington in an effort to stop Republicans from enacting new restrictions to voting laws in Texas; the party’s state senators failed to deny a quorum in that chamber because four of their colleagues stayed in Austin.

“We’re not fleeing,” said State Senator Royce West, one of the lawmakers who spoke in Washington. “We’re working here today.”

State Senator Carol Alvarado, the chairwoman of the Texas State Senate Democratic Caucus, said that the group had a “very intimate” meeting on Tuesday afternoon with Vice President Kamala Harris. Other members of the group mentioned that they had met with sympathetic Democratic senators like Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

A delegation of Texas Democrats has a meeting scheduled for Thursday with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the first session they will have with a senator who has not already committed to passing Democrats’ major federal voting rights bills with a simple majority rather than requiring a 60-vote threshold. One of the bills, the For the People Act, would create sweeping new federal protections for voting, while a narrower bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would restore key parts of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

State Representative Chris Turner, the chairman of the Texas House Democratic caucus, said he was trying to organize meetings with Republican senators and other Democratic senators who have not committed to bypassing the 60-vote threshold to enact federal voting rights legislation.

There is no indication any Senate Republicans are sympathetic to the Texans’ arguments. And on Wednesday morning, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, excoriated the state Democrats who fled.

“They’ve just come here to Washington to snap selfies, bask in the limelight and beg Senate Democrats to take over Texas elections,” Mr. McConnell said. “This outrage is completely phony.”

In Texas, Dade Phelan, the speaker of the State House, asked Democrats who left Austin to return their $221 per diem, and the State Senate, which remains in session, passed a series of bills on bail bond reform, property tax cuts and social media regulations.

“The Senate is going to keep passing bills,” said State Senator Bryan Hughes, the chief architect of the Senate elections bill. “All those elements the governor put on the special session are important to folks back home, so we’re going to get them passed.”

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday that she did not have any details on a legislative strategy for passing the Democrats’ federal voting rights bills.

David Montgomery contributed reporting from Austin, Texas.

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The Jan. 6 select committee will call police officers to testify about the attack.

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Capitol police officers in the U.S. Capitol building rotunda in late January.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot announced on Wednesday that it would convene its first hearing on July 27 to take testimony from police officers who battled against the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol seeking to disrupt the 2020 electoral count.

The announcement by Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the panel’s chairman, showed that Democrats intend to move swiftly to stand up the inquiry and begin a highly public examination of the deadliest attack on the Capitol in two centuries. The hearing is now scheduled to take place less than one month after the House voted mostly along party lines to establish the committee, and as Mr. Thompson is still finalizing its staff.

“It’s important that we start with the officers who were on the front lines to remember that we are talking about a massive, violent assault on the U.S. Congress and our electoral process,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said in an interview. “This was not a wandering tourist group, and our response as Congress should not be a partisan food fight.”

The decision to press forward effectively gave a deadline to Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, to decide whether to recommend members of his party to fill committee slots reserved for the minority. Mr. McCarthy battled against the creation of a committee that he said would be used as a political weapon, just as he had opposed creating an independent commission to investigate the attack. He has so far refused to say whether Republicans will participate.

Senior Republican aides said this week that they were confident the leader would ultimately recommend members, but that he was still searching for the right mix of lawmakers who could hold the line against Democratic attacks and staff willing to take on what is likely to be an unsavory task. Several moderate Republicans who had called for the creation of an independent commission, and who might take the inquiry seriously, have already said they will not accept the assignment.

A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy declined to comment on Wednesday.

The resolution adopted by the House late last month established a 13-member panel, eight to be named by Democrats and five chosen in consultation with the minority. The body has subpoena power and a mandate to dig deeply into the roots of the attack, how and why American intelligence and law enforcement agencies failed to prevent it, and what might be done to prevent a repeat.

Regardless of whom Mr. McCarthy names, the committee appears destined for a jagged political split. Republicans have made little secret that they believe Democrats will use the panel to churn up damaging information on former President Donald J. Trump, whose lies about election fraud fueled the riot, and Republicans in Congress who worked alongside him.

Democrats are increasingly furious at Republicans for blocking the creation of an independent 9/11-style commission and attempting to downplay or outright whitewash the events of Jan. 6.

Wednesday’s announcement offered few details beyond that Mr. Thompson intended “to hear firsthand from members of the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.” Still, it promises to be an emotional start to the inquiry. Several officers have already spoken publicly about brutal physical injuries caused by the mob, the psychological toll of losing control of the Capitol and strain on a force that saw scores of its members injured and two die in the wake of the attack.

Olivia Rodrigo visits the White House to help reach the young and unvaccinated.

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Olivia Rodrigo Visits the White House to Encourage Vaccination

The pop star Olivia Rodrigo spoke at a news conference with Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. Ms. Rodrigo’s visit is meant to encourage young people to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

So I have a special guest with me today. Joining us in the briefing room is actress and multi-platinum recording singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, who traversed red lights and stop signs to see us. If you know her music, you’ll get that dad joke there thing. And we just want to thank you for using your platform and your voice for elevating the important issue of young people getting vaccinated. She’s here today to meet with the president and Dr. Fauci later this afternoon. First, I want to say I am beyond honored and humbled to be here today to help spread the message about the importance of youth vaccination. I’m in awe of the work that President Biden and Dr. Fauci have done. And I was happy to help lend my support to this important initiative. It’s important to have conversations with friends and family members encouraging all communities to get vaccinated and actually get to a vaccination site, which you can do more easily than ever before, given how many sites we have and how easy it is to find them at vaccines.gov.

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The pop star Olivia Rodrigo spoke at a news conference with Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. Ms. Rodrigo’s visit is meant to encourage young people to be vaccinated against Covid-19.CreditCredit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Nixon and Elvis. Trump and Kanye. Biden and Olivia.

On Wednesday, Olivia Rodrigo, the 18-year-old pop star with the No. 1 album in the country, visited the White House and joined the Biden administration’s efforts to use the young and influential to reach the young and unvaccinated.

“It’s important to have conversations with friends and family members,” Ms. Rodrigo said, reading from prepared remarks during a short appearance in the White House briefing room, “and actually get to a vaccination site, which you can do more easily than ever before.”

The White House could not have scripted it better. (In fact, White House officials helped her craft her remarks, according to an administration official.) The “Good 4 U” singer has millions of followers on social media who hang on her every word, and she is part of a growing list of creators, celebrities and influential people who are interested in working with the White House to deliver a pro-vaccine message directly to their respective communities.

Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy, has been organizing an effort to reach out to people like Ms. Rodrigo and invite them to Washington to create content. The plans for bringing her to the White House, Mr. Flaherty said in an interview, began in June. After she arrived, Ms. Rodrigo wandered the halls of the West Wing with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, stopping by desks and chatting with officials before it was time to film a series of educational videos with President Biden.

“Not every 18-year-old uses their time to come do this,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said from the lectern.

Administration officials are hoping the time investment pays off. In recent weeks, as the federal strategy has shifted to more personalized efforts to reach unvaccinated people, the White House has recruited YouTube stars, social media influencers and celebrities who can send the messaging to their own channels. It has also highlighted efforts by popular dating apps to encourage young singles to promote their vaccination status.

Healthy young adults — or “young invincibles” — are historically hard to reach, and the White House has been upfront about the difficulties that officials have faced in convincing them to receive a vaccine. Those hurdles can include an overlapping mix of inertia, fear, busy schedules and misinformation.

Young people under the age of 27 are vaccinated at a lower rate than older people, according to the White House, and were part of the reason the administration said it fell short of reaching Mr. Biden’s goal of partly vaccinating 70 percent of American adults by July 4. Younger people became eligible for immunization later in the vaccine rollout after other high-priority risk groups. Those aged 12 to 15 only became eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in mid-May.

Across the country overall, providers were administering about 0.55 million doses per day on average, as of Wednesday, about an 84 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported on April 13. its from here and they updated for the day.

The White House is still facing significant barriers to reaching reluctant Americans, particularly in conservative states where officials say they face pressure against evangelizing for a vaccine.

After Ms. Rodrigo left the podium, Ms. Psaki was asked about Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician who was Tennessee’s top vaccination official until recently.

Dr. Fiscus has said she was fired from her job after she distributed a memo that suggested some teenagers might be eligible for vaccinations without their parents’ consent. The memo repeated information that had been publicly available on the health department’s website for years.

“And we’ve been crystal clear that we stand against any effort that would politicize our country’s pandemic response and recovery from Covid-19,” Ms. Psaki said.

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Merkel will meet Biden on Thursday, most likely her final visit to the White House as chancellor.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Biden talking at the Group of 7 summit in England last month. They have known each other for years.Credit...Guido Bergmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BERLIN — Angela Merkel is scheduled to arrive at the White House on Thursday for talks with the fourth U.S. president she has known since becoming German chancellor, on a visit partly about policy and partly about legacy as she prepares to leave office this year.

Over her more than 15 years in power, the relationship between Berlin and Washington has withstood disagreements over the detention camp at Guantánamo and allegations that the National Security Agency had tapped the chancellor’s phone. But President Donald J. Trump’s notoriously hostile exchanges with Ms. Merkel over NATO contributions, trade and multilateralism have left relations badly in need of a repair.

In President Biden, she now finds herself working with a man she has known for years and who has long supported a strong trans-Atlantic relationship and multilateral partnerships.

But there is much work to be done to restore relations. Most of all, Ms. Merkel would like to return stability and trust to the relationship and buffer it from what many in Europe now fear may be episodic disruptions tied to U.S. elections every four years.

“The concern is that, realistically, there could again be some other administration in the U.S. that might come back to what we saw during Trump,” said Peter Beyer, Germany’s coordinator for trans-Atlantic affairs.

“The question has been discussed and many people have worked their brains over how we can make the U.S.-German relationship so resilient, so strong that it will not fall back to that,” he said.

First, substantive differences between the nations — over a new Russian natural-gas pipeline to Europe, over whether to embrace or contain a rising China and over how to manage the coronavirus pandemic — will have to be navigated.

In choosing the chancellor as the first European leader to visit the White House since he took office, Mr. Biden is making it clear that the invitation is about more than allowing Ms. Merkel a victory lap while she picks up an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins — to add to those she has already received from Harvard and Stanford.

The president is eager to get Germany, which has Europe’s largest economy, on board for some of his own geopolitical goals before the campaign cycle for the U.S. midterm elections begins heating up, especially on China and Russia.

Obamacare enrollments have risen by 2 million, reaching a record high, since Biden reopened them in February.

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A man signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act in Miami in 2016. Marketplace enrollments are at a record high, after President Biden re-opened enrollment in February and Congress acted to lower the cost.Credit...Angel Valentin for The New York Times

Since February, when the Biden administration reopened the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces, two million Americans have signed up for coverage, health officials announced Wednesday.

Total enrollment in the Obamacare marketplaces is now at a record high, though the final numbers are not yet available, said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a call with reporters. The previous high was 12.7 million Americans who selected plans in 2016.

Enrollment in Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled, has also reached a record high. A total of 81 million Americans were covered by Medicaid in February, the most recent month with complete data.

The increases reflect a growing demand for insurance coverage during the pandemic, when many Americans lost job-based coverage or became more worried about remaining uninsured. But they also reflect major policy changes this year: Congress passed legislation that substantially lowered the price of insurance for nearly all Americans buying their own coverage.

“A lot of Americans are on the edge — they are trying to figure out if they can afford that coverage,” said Xavier Becerra, the secretary of Health and Human Services. “If you give them that opportunity, they’ll sign up.”

This is the first recession since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 law meant in part to provide a safety net for Americans who do not get health coverage through their work. That law now looks more secure than ever, after surviving a third challenge to its legitimacy at the Supreme Court last month.

In addition to the new money, the Biden administration has opened the doors for new enrollees and aggressively advertised the opportunities. People are typically allowed to enroll in A.C.A. coverage for only a brief period in the fall. Citing the pandemic, Biden administration officials established a much longer enrollment period this year. Signups were reopened in mid-February and will remain available until Aug. 15.

The government has also been paying for marketing to spread the word about the extended enrollment period and the new subsidies.

Although A.C.A. markets grew more stable in recent years, Trump administration officials took fewer steps to encourage Americans to seek coverage. They slashed funding for outreach and advertising, and made the enrollment period shorter than it had been under the Obama administration.

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Gillibrand faces resistance as she pushes beyond sex assault in her bill to alter military prosecutions.

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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Vanessa Guillén Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act on Capitol Hill last month.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

After years of resistance from Pentagon leaders, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, appeared to be nearing victory on a major change to how the military handles sexual assault cases. But her emphasis on the inclusion of all serious crimes in the measure as a matter of racial justice now threatens to weaken her support.

Ms. Gillibrand’s push to remove commanders from decisions in the prosecution of sexual assault cases had gained bipartisan backing despite opposition from military leaders. Last month, President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III endorsed a similar change recommended by an independent military panel.

But Mr. Austin and some of Ms. Gillibrand’s strongest allies in Congress on this issue are balking at the more extensive changes to the military justice system. Some lawmakers say they had only recently focused on the particulars of the measure.

“Her bill is far broader than I had realized,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and an early proponent of Ms. Gillibrand’s measure. “I believe she’s made a compelling case on sexual assault and related allegations to be taken out of the chain of command.”

But Ms. Collins said she did not think there was justification for moving other alleged crimes out of the military justice system.

Ms. Gillibrand’s bill would remove the decision to prosecute major crimes like sexual assault and other felonies such as murder from military commanders to military prosecutors. The Pentagon panel suggested a more limited change: that a special victims unit within the military should be set up for sex assault cases and a few other crimes.

But Ms. Gillibrand argues that would create an unequal system and has said her proposal would also help combat racial injustice in military prosecutions.

That perspective has helped bring other voices to her cause.

Representative Anthony Brown, Democrat of Maryland, a veteran and former Army judge advocate general, said in an interview, “I think in aftermath of George Floyd’s tragic murder, it really propelled many of us to say: ‘Hey, this is a real opportunity here to fix these inequities and disparities.’”

Some Republican leaders are speaking out in favor of Covid vaccines.

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Senate Republican Leaders Promote Vaccinations

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Senator Roy Blunt spoke on Tuesday about the slowing pace of vaccinations, calling on Americans to get inoculated in order to protect themselves and others.

I’m perplexed by the difficulty we have in finishing the job. If you’re a football fan, we’re in the red zone, but we’re not in the end zone yet, and we need to keep preaching that getting the vaccine is important. Nobody knows more about that than Senator Blunt. I don’t know if you want to add anything Roy to what I’ve said here, but we need to finish the job. And it’s, part of it is just convincing the American people of the importance of doing this. Everyone who knows this subject says that if you get the disease again, chances are pretty good you’re not going to die from it if you get vaccinated. So I don’t know how many times we have to keep saying it, but for myself, I intend to keep saying it over and over and over again. Roy, do you want to? Well, I think, I think, leader, that the point is that you can’t just expect that if everybody else is going to get the vaccine and somehow that’s going to protect you, that actually might be the case. But we’re at a critical moment here where the way to stop this is to be sure it has nowhere that it can continue to spread to other people.

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Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Senator Roy Blunt spoke on Tuesday about the slowing pace of vaccinations, calling on Americans to get inoculated in order to protect themselves and others.CreditCredit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

As the Delta variant rips through conservative swaths of the country, some elected Republicans are facing growing pressure from public health advocates to speak out — not only in favor of their constituents being inoculated against the coronavirus but also against media figures and elected officials who are questioning the vaccines.

“We don’t control conservative media figures so far as I know — at least I don’t,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said in an interview on Wednesday. “That being said, I think it’s an enormous error for anyone to suggest that we shouldn’t be taking vaccines. Look, the politicization of vaccination is an outrage and frankly moronic.”

Republican senators who favor vaccination are still taking pains not to mention the names of colleagues, such as Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have given voice to vaccine skepticism, or media personalities like Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, who expresses such skepticism almost nightly.

Vaccines are indeed effective against the Delta variant, and nationwide, the numbers remain at some of the lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic.

Still, with cases ticking upward, driven by localized outbreaks in places with low vaccination rates — Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Nevada — Republican leaders are talking.

“As a polio victim myself when I was young, I’ve studied that disease,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, said on Tuesday. “It took 70 years — 70 years — to come up with two vaccines that finally ended the polio threat. As a result of Operation Warp Speed, we have not one, not two, but three highly effective vaccines, so I’m perplexed by the difficulty we have finishing the job.”

“If you’re a football fan,” Mr. McConnell said, “we’re in the red zone. But we’re not in the end zone yet. And we need to keep preaching that getting the vaccine is important.”

Still, when asked about his conversations with vaccine skeptics in the Senate Republican Conference, Mr. McConnell demurred. “I can only speak for myself, and I just did,” he said.

Senior Republicans are clearly walking a fine line. They cannot afford to see a resurgent coronavirus disproportionately hurt conservative voters, who have been fed a diet of misinformation about vaccines by right-leaning news outlets and commentators. But they cannot afford to alienate them either.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on Wednesday that much of the skepticism surrounding vaccines “is based on conspiracy theories, unfortunately.”

“I do acknowledge the right of an individual to decide whether they’re going to get the vaccine,” he said, “but what I’ve tried to do is encourage everybody to get the vaccine.”

On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators and House members introduced legislation to repeal mask mandates on public transport, dismissing the spread of the virus.

“The viral spread is collapsing and our normal lives are returning,” declared Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona.

Mr. Cornyn drew a distinction between densely populated urban areas like Houston and Dallas, where he said mass vaccination is vital, and smaller, spread out cities like Odessa and Midland where “social distancing is not a problem, let me say.”

The virus has not drawn that distinction. Some of the fastest growth is happening in smaller cities and rural regions, like parts of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.

Mr. Romney tried to appeal to supporters of former President Donald J. Trump in those areas.

“People who support him applaud the fact that he moved heaven and earth to get vaccines developed on a timely basis,” Mr. Romney said. “He accomplished that, and not taking advantage of that would be an insult to the accomplishment.”

As to his message to vaccine skeptics in his conference, Mr. Romney said, “They know where I stand.”

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